The article analyses five small paintings of Wals (ca. 1590/95 - ca. 1638/40) [Figs. 1-5], and suggest the chronology leading from the circle of Pynas and Tassi to the round curvings and to the architectural compositions of the 1630s. The impact on his disciple Claude Lorrain is visible in the canvas of the latter.

The study of the early years of Lorrain touches also his oeuvre gravé and curved reproductions of his friend Barriere, one of which [Fig. 9] certifies the picture that might be the work of Lorrain of ca. 1627 [Fig. 11]. This painting, depending on Bril and de Tassi, is compared with other early works of Lorrain. The lecture of the sources, among others Sandrart and Baldinucci, indicates the date of birth of Lorrain to ca. 1600, his arrival to Rome to ca. 1616-1619, the departure for Naples to the end of the year 1620, and the practice under de Tassi to 1622-25. The other picture [Fig. 20] in different manner can be dated back to the beginnings of Lorrain.

Jacopo Pontormo's Visitation, a fresco in the atrium of the SS. Annunziata, Florence, has rarely been treated to an iconographical examination, and then only superficially and without adequate examination of the significance of certain of its anomalous aspects, among them the formal architectural backdrop and the Sacrifice of Abraham. However, deciphering the painting's content requires careful study of the inscriptions. Yet, those very few scholars who have recognized the potential of these texts have either ignored or misinterpreted them. To some extent, this is understandable, because the inscriptions are extremely difficult to unravel and to comprehend, since they consist of abbreviations or fragments of words. l have managed to do so and to ascertain the ideas they embody. These I coordinated with the various pictorial elements of the painting, with engraved replicas, and with biblical and liturgical texts and conclude that the painting' message centers around and elaborates the concept of faith.

CHARLES BURROUGHS - The Last Judgement of Michelangelo's: Pictorial Space, Sacred Topography, and the Social World (pp. 55—89)

The Sack of Rome (1527) caused unimaginable human suffering and material damage. More serious for the Roman Church was the profanation of the city at the hands of an army that, though serving a Catholic monarch, included a substantial Lutheran element, which perpetrated a systematic assault on relics and sacred images. Beyond the restoration of the physical fabric of Rome, the Church's response to the Sack involved the visible resanctification of the city as an encyclopaedic representation of a transcendent order. This required a profound confrontation with the sharpening scruples of reformers about pilgrimage cults and the use of images in worship.

The Sistine Last Judgement (1534-1541), as rethought by Michelangelo during the early years of Paul III, constitutes a central instrument of such a response. The selection and positioning of major figures in the painting suggest a diagrammatic image of Roman sacred topography. The few identifiable saints relate to the Church's pastoral role and institutions of welfare at a time of deepening need in the city (one important response was the early ministry of Ignatius of Loyola, in Rome from 1537). The emphasis on patron saints of key Roman industries/crafts is consistent with the importance of artisan confraternities in the Church-sponsored development of popular religiosity at Rome; this may resonate with the unprecedented and paradoxical treatment of the saints' attributes as instruments of martyrdom actively wielded by the saints themselves. This too relates to the Church's response to Lutheranism, specifically the revaluation of labour and the workaday world.

Michelangelo's painting, finally, occasioned a fierce debate about religious imagery; in part it fell victim to it. The debate is anticipated in the painting itself, which gives prominence to saints, notably Bartholomew, who perished for their assault on image worship. Such iconoclastic associations are related to the central paradox of the painting; the coexistence of conspicuous fictive elements (not only the much criticized Dantesque figures) and devices that deny the factivity of the work. This, finally, leads to the problem of the celebrated skin displayed by St. Bartholomew. It is not his own skin, but a mere simulacrum, its sign character frankly manifested. This is its official aspect; more personally, the features of Michelangelo on the skin resonate with his poetic expressions of doubt about the value of his art, as if to deflect or even expiate criticism of artistic hubris in the face of the awful second coming of Christ as universal judge.

ESTELLE LINGO - The Evolution of Michelangelo's Magnifici Tomb: Program versus Process in the Iconography of the Medici Chapel (pp. 91—100)

There has been much debate in the art historical literature over the iconographic program of Michelangelo's Medici Chapel in San Lorenzo, Florence. However an examination of Michelangelo's studies for the Magnifici Tomb suggest that no unified iconographic program guided the design of the Medici Chapel. From the drawings and documents relating to the commission, the desire for formal unity and functionality emerge as central concerns of the artist and his patrons. The studies record a design process in which iconographic content was selected and elaborated in an ongoing fashion and in dialogue with these concerns.

In the first half of the fifteenth century, sculpture in Florence broke new ground in the field of expressive naturalism. Although Donatello's sculpture best demonstrates this, this article suggests that the impulse for it came from Brunelleschi whose few new surviving sculptures were seminal for its development. The achievement of both sculptors is identified as a new awareness of the relationship between the sculpted figure and the viewer. This can be seen in the way the placement of figures was used to enhance both naturalism and meaning. Naturalism was achieved partly by adapting their forms to give the illusion of actual presence particularly when viewed from below, and partly by taking into account their relationship to their environment. Meaning was achieved by reassessing the physical and spiritual import of each individual figure. The combination of these innovations encouraged the viewer to seek a new immediacy and depth in his religious experience.

ROGER J. CRUM - Donatello's Ascension of St. John the Evangelist and the Old Sacristy as Sepulchre (pp. 141—161)

Donatello's Ascension of St. John the Evangelist belongs within the larger sepulchral iconography of the Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo. In Donatello's relief, there is a donor-like figure that has not been discussed by scholars. This article argues that this figure most probably represents Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici, the original patron of the sacristy, and that Donatello's Ascension formed part of a posthumous commemoration of Giovanni ordered by his sons. In establishing this identification, evidence is presented that suggests that Brunelleschi's supposed disapproval of Donatello's work in the sacristy arose less from problems of stylistic incompatibility than from the position of the sacristy as a monument caught between two generations of Medici with differing conceptions of Giovanni's commemoration.

The manuscript of the Dante's Commedia rewritten by Nicolaus Mangona was embellished by 92 drawings made by Sandro Botticelli between ca 1485 and 1495. It is characterized by the very tight connection between the text parts and the adequate illustrations depicting the scenes in the fullest detail, what reminds the cedexes.

A number of the structural innovations were introduced in the volume. Each canto, illustrated by one all-page set of drawings, is contained on one page what was allowed by removal of the commentary. Book was probably opened vertically what is understandable from the practical reasons. This also gave a special significance to the miniatures of the Plan of Hell and Lucifer clasping the book's course. General project of the manuscript's form is due to S. Botticelli who used here the ideas first introduced in his designs of the engravings for the Florentine edition of Commedia (1481).

Longhi was one of the few Italian art historians who took a real interest in contemporary art. However, his output in the early and late periods of his long career clearly evidences a complete reversal of attitude on this subject: the young stalwart defender of Futurism is recast into the mature and equally stalwart reprover of all the post-1945 art

movements.

His whole-hearted endorsement in 1913-1914 of Futurism produced an Avant-Garde interpretation of 17th century art. Yet, only three years later, his sensitivity to the geometric and abstract form, previously the chief element in his outlook on the Caravaggio school, is gradually supplanted by a re-evaluation of colour values and the repudiation of the Avant-Garde movement.

He also deeply and personally resented the rising tide of the "rappel a l'ordre". A champion of Impressionism, he is, in the interwar period, an implacable enemy of the fashionable exaltation of Italian 19th-century painting and its nationalistic connotations. He favoured the work of painters such as Carr a and Morandi, capable of re-interpreting in a personal, non-academic way their rapport with tradition.

After the II World War, Longhi remained faithful to his preference for realism in its broadest terms, judging severely the Abstract and Pop Art movements, as well as the overpowering influence of Picasso. He believed that art critics should only adironic towards those critics who interpreted art from an exclusively philosophical sociological point of view.